B.C. politics matured when it mattered most – Toronto Star

Saturday’s B.C. election may mark a milestone in the politics of the province in more than one way.

It took place under the sign of a pandemic that has turned the world we had known upside down. The global economy, with its extensive transnational lines of supply and demand, will not remain the same. National sovereignty has suddenly acquired a new importance, as borders have been closed, and country after country seeks to ensure an adequate national supply of key medical equipment.

Austerity, the byword of several decades of economic policy-making in the OECD world and beyond, has taken a big hit, as countries — and subnational units like provinces — engage in forms of deficit expenditure not seen since the Second World War.

Something else may also have been taking place, with significant long-term implications. The intense polarization that has often characterized politics, not least in B.C., has given way to a more consensual approach. In Canada at least — unlike countries like the United States or Brazil — there has been a significant level of co-operation between the federal and provincial governments. The same has been true for the interaction among political parties within B.C.

British Columbia, where divisions between right and left were once paramount, has been a model of parties coming together to face an overriding threat. We have been well served by excellent public health officers — Dr. Bonnie Henry first and foremost — but also by an excellent Minister of Health, Adrian Dix, and by close co-operation across party lines in the legislature.

One of the reasons the NDP was successful in securing a second mandate, this time with a clear majority, was because of its good management of the pandemic, when compared to provinces like Alberta, Ontario, and especially Quebec. The NDP also benefited from having run a fairly tight ship fiscally in the three years preceding COVID-19, in co-operation with the Green Party. And it was also helped, in my opinion, by the less polarizing character that has characterized provincial politics in recent years

The NDP is a moderately left-of-centre party with less of the ideological animus that characterized it 25 or 50 years ago. The Greens have emerged as an important third force, positioning themselves as an alternative voice, especially in matters related to the environment. And the B.C. Liberals, the main right-of-centre provincial party, find themselves chastened in the aftermath of their Oct. 24 defeat, forced to rethink some of their harder ideological stances of yesteryear.

So maybe, just maybe, B.C. politics may have come of age. The pandemic in particular has reminded us all that faced with challenges to our very survival, old ideological divides matter a lot less. The more we can find consensus, at least around core issues, the better.

I hope some of this carries over into the newly elected legislature and that Premier John Horgan lives up to his promise to pay close attention to relevant suggestions that come from across the aisle. Then we may discover that the pandemic, for all its devastation, may have done the politics of this province some good.

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